Tag: Stewardship

Making the Most of This Life

One criticism that gets launched at Christianity is that Christianity moves your focus to life after death and neglects this life. While individuals may do this, true disciples of Jesus know this is certainly not true. This relatively short period of our existence, that we give the misnomer “life”, is important for its own unique purpose; and you would do well to understand what it is all about. It is having eternal life as a promise from God that makes effort in this life meaningful. Without it we are just chasing the wind.

The most important thing to realize is that our purpose in life is not trying to earn a place in Heaven and the New Earth. All our efforts will be so feeble in comparison to the glory God wants to give us that trying to merit eternal life is a fool’s errand. Eternal life has to be a gift and Jesus is the giver. Once you are connected to Jesus then what? God doesn’t move Christians immediately to Heaven because there is work to do. Jesus wants to work primarily through us. Maximizing this relationship is making the most of our lives.

You could pick a different purpose for life. You could see life as a time to amass wealth or power. You could make your goal travel. You could even seek to make a scientific or technological breakthrough. These things will end up as meaningless. Solomon found that out. (Ecclesiastes) Don’t worry about what people will think of you when you are gone or if they even remember your name. Care about God’s evaluation. There are things that God does care about. If you work with God and do things His way, not only will your accomplishments leave a big positive impact on other people, they will be honored with some type of eternal reward by God. Again, it is important to stress that entry into eternal life is the work of Jesus and a gift to you; responding to that gift with a fruitful life pleases God and adds to your future existence in some way.

So, what matters to God? God wants to save people from a necessary eternal damnation and bring them to eternal life. He does this by the power of the Holy Spirit working through story of Jesus and its associated promise of forgiveness and eternal life (the Gospel). First on the list of what we can do is to disseminate information about Jesus. Only God can make a believer, but we are part of the process via words and example. Everybody can do this.

Next, God wants more than people who believe Him. He wants disciples. He wants people who will learn and multiply the process. You can maximize your life by teaching your children, teaching others, and by financially and prayerfully backing others who do so. These two things are the main thrust of what cares about but not all.

God also wants kindness and care for others to flow from His people. Visit and care for the sick. Feed the hungry. Encourage the imprisoned. Help them to reintegrate into society. Fight injustice. Propagate the truth. Provide whatever kind of care that love requires. There are millions of opportunities to do these things.

God also includes us in spiritual warfare. Satan and his associates are real and present. They influence the minds of sinful people. Counteract their actions when you see it. Pray against the power of the evil one.

God also cares about our “normal” vocations in life. You have a job? Do it as one who is working for God. As long as the job is not illicit, it can be done for God’s glory.

Being a spouse or a parent or grandparent can also be done in a godly way that benefits your own family. God cares about this.

Got neighbors? Be neighborly. Help them. Get to know them. Pray for them.

We are also stewards. God considers us to be managers of assets that He puts in our care. This includes our body, our time, money, abilities, the planet, knowledge, relationships and more. Take care of them well. Use these things in a way that honors God.

Your ongoing relationship with God matters too. Communicate through prayer as with a friend. Worship God in sincerity (spirit) and accurately (truth). God seeks this type of interaction.

When you have eternal life through Jesus, your life is heaped with purpose. You will have purpose in eternity as well, but work in this fallen world is unique. All of these things are important to God but it is also important how you do them.

10 So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”

Luke 17:10 (ESV)

You can’t do these things with a sense of entitlement. We are saved by grace, so we are not entitled. Humble service gains undeserved rewards. While there are many motives for doing these things, the best is love. Don’t work for reward. Work because you love God and God’s love is in you.

I hope that you can see that our lives can be meaningful to the last moment. Through transition of purpose, suffering, illness, even dementia.

Being mindful of our God-given purpose and pursuing it is living wisely. Maximize your life.

Faithful Stewardship

To be well prepared for death, we have to be reconciled with our Maker and Judge. That is the most fundamental thing. The story of the Ten Virgins, covered in my last blog, teaches that we cannot have the connection that we have with Jesus to run dry, and faith be lost. Presuming that this is not the case, we go on to Jesus’ next parable, The Parable of the Talents, in Matthew 25:14-30 to learn another valuable lesson about being prepared for death and/or Judgment Day.

This story describes Jesus as a rich man who is going away and leaving property in the management of three stewards. From Jesus’ ascension to His return, Jesus is not going to have a direct visible presence. He promises to be with us always. He promises that we are “the Body of Christ” and that He is in us. But to the outside observer, He is gone. The wise and prepared disciple of Jesus understands that Jesus is here and that He has given us responsibility. We are best prepared when we are faithfully caring out our responsibility to the very end of our days.

In the story, two of the three stewards manage to bring a 100% return. They are not given equal responsibilities (one has five talents of silver-approximately 100 years wages and the other has three talents) The money represents a wide range of things of which we are stewards: our money, our time, our abilities, our opportunities, our bodies, the planet, our knowledge of God and possibly more.

Their example instructs us to be examining our stewardship throughout our lives. Again, our stewardship doesn’t save us, but clearly there is a reward connected with doing a good job and we don’t have an evaluation until Judgment Day. It is good to be aware of our stewardship as early as possible, but this lesson is especially valuable toward the end of life when we might be inclined to evaluate our own lives as useless.

To be productive stewards isn’t necessarily the same thing as having a big impact on the world. It is just a matter of being faithful with what you have. As physical and mental faculties diminish, we need to seek what we can do rather than merely survive or bemoan what we have lost. Can you still pray? Then do it. Can you show love? Can you praise God, even internally? God determines when our stewardship is concluded in this life.

This is the primary argument against suicide. Suicide is not necessarily damning , but it is a sin. When we cut the corner to death, we leave behind at least some of our stewardship responsibility. A person who sees life as a stewardship given by God and is confident in eternal life because of grace is highly unlikely to find any situation bad enough to merit killing oneself.

Faithful stewardship involves both respect for the asset under your stewardship as being the property of God, efficient use of it, and results that further God’s Kingdom or honor God’s name. Faithful stewardship is a second level of preparedness for death.

The story has a third steward in it. This one is given only one talent, but he buries it in the ground. Who does this character represent? It represents those who are given at least life, time on Earth, and an intellectual understanding of the Gospel; but it never results in faith, salvation and consequently any result that is pleasing to God.

In his explanation, the third steward says that he knew the owner was a hard man and was afraid. Is God a hard man? In a way, yes. God is patient, merciful, loving and supportive. Those who have faith can never be completely unproductive, so there is little to worry about. But the story reminds us of the twin facts that God can be generous and severe.

Faithlessness and unfaithfulness as a steward results in the third steward being “cut to pieces and put with the hypocrites. In that place where there will be weeping a gnashing of teeth.” This sentence a description of being damned. God’s law leaves no room for those who reject Jesus’ sacrifice. God’s justice or severity will not compromise that requirement.

Again, do not take away that decent stewardship saves you. God gives salvation, but throwing it away damns you or, even better, leaves you in your natural state of being damned. Being a good steward rewards you. The two productive stewards get this accolade and promise:

Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your Master.

Matthew 25:23

That is a promise that excites and a commendation that we should all seek.

For another angle on The Parable of the Talents go here:

https://wordpress.com/post/afterdeathsite.com/1395

The Parable of the Talents and Judgment Day

In Matthew 25, Jesus gets His disciples ready for Judgment Day. In a series of stories He tells them what they should be doing now in preparation for that unavoidable day. One of the stories is the Parable of the Talents. It links for us the importance of good stewardship to Judgment Day results.

Stewardship is the idea that God has put us (humans) in charge of certain aspects of His creation, and we are to be good caretakers and managers of these things while we are alive. The parable of the talents uses money as a metaphor for all of these things. What things are we talking about?

Money is one of them. God has created a planet that sustains an economic system and places us with certain abilities to earn money, which God expects to be managed in a certain way. We are to be wise and efficient, generous, but not trusting or dependent on money rather than God.

There are other stewardships as well. We are stewards of our time, our abilities (both learned and supernaturally given), our bodies, the planet itself, and the knowledge of God that we receive. In general, we are to acknowledge that these things are from God, we want to help others with them, we want to respect the asset itself, but we never want to confuse the asset for God himself.

So here is the Parable of the Talents:

“For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. 15 To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. 17 So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. 18 But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money. 19 Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. 20 And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’ 21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 22 And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here, I have made two talents more.’ 23 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 24 He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

Matthew 25:16-30

Notice that the three stewards are given unequal amounts of money (a talent is about 20 years wages for an average worker). We have different portfolios made up of money, time, talent, relationships, health and natural resources. We are only responsible for what we have. The more we have, the more the responsibility and expectations.

Two of the three make the most of the opportunity. They use their lives well and bring a proportional return that would represent good done with the right attitude and motivation, bringing people to the forgiveness and eternal life that God offers, strengthening the faith of others and enhancing their discipleship, raising genuine praise for God, respecting His creation and resisting evil.

Their life work doesn’t save them. Like everyone, we are saved by Jesus’ life work. We are saved by a gift that covers the multiple failures and many sins. The Judgment Day evaluation of our stewardship is for the sake of reward. Since we are saved as a gift, do we deserve a reward? Absolutely not, but God does it anyway. What reward? The Bible is vague about this, but notice that the Master offers to put the faithful stewards in charge of even more– an impact that they will experience in the New Earth.

The third guy is the interesting and scary one. Who does he represent? He receives something, but in the end there is no return. Can somebody really produce nothing with their lives? This man represents those who hear God’s plan to save them but don’t believe it. They may even be culturally Christian, but they don’t expect a Judgment Day or eternal life, they only live for this life.

The Master seems angry and harsh, but consider the lengths that God has gone through to save us. Jesus’ death on the cross is no small thing. To reject it is a great offense on top of all of our sins. The unfaithful steward is bound and thrown into “outer darkness”, a place where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” I don’t think I need to explain where that is.

It is interesting to compare this unfaithful servant with a representative person described in 1 Corinthians 3:10-15, which is also a Judgment Day picture. That will be the topic of the next blog entry.

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